Federal Impact on State Resources / Fighting the feds for clean air

Helen H. Kang

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 10, 2003

As if gutting the Clean Air Act -- the law responsible for improvements in our air quality -- were not enough, the Bush Administration just declared that it will fight the "clean fleet" rules that the South Coast (Los Angeles) Air Quality Management District adopted to control harmful diesel emissions from school buses, garbage trucks, airport shuttles, street sweepers and utility trucks.

The federal government has filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with industry before the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Engine Manufacturers Association has its last opportunity to overturn two lower court decisions in favor of the air district. The clean fleet rules, which Los Angeles adopted to carry out its environmental justice initiative, should, in fact, be adopted in some form in all urban areas, including the Bay Area, where we are out of compliance with federal smog standards. Rather than advocating for the rules, however, the Bush administration has chosen to lie down with industry.

These actions are but a sample of what has been going on at the federal government. In recognition of all this "good work," (which also included denying a 1999 petition asking the federal EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks), Jeffrey Holmstead, a key EPA air-quality official in Washington, cut the workday short the Friday before Labor Day, citing "just another typical week" there.

So, since we clearly do not have an environmental protection agency at the federal level, who will step up to tame the reckless wrecking balls? Many environmental groups, as well as California's Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the Air Resources Board (whose members are appointed by the governor, and thus subject to the result of the recall), have and will continue to challenge EPA's caprice with the new source review rule relaxation, which allows older plants to modernize equipment without improving pollution controls.

At the local level, the Bay Area's air regulatory agency, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, overseen by local elected officials, also announced that it has adopted a resolution to reaffirm its commitment to protecting public health by maintaining stringent new source review rules. The Bay Area district has not always had the confidence of grassroots clean-air advocates, and this positive step for clean air will certainly be noticed.

Soon, when the federal government fulfills its promise and attempts to take away state and local authority to enforce more stringent new source review rules, environmental advocates and local and state governments will have to forge a strong bond to fight the Bush administration's gleeful assault to turn back the improvements we as a nation have made in environmental quality.

Will the clean air advocates win? We should. As the nonpartisan General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has said, the EPA relied on anecdotal evidence from unidentified industry sources to justify the relaxation of the pollution control modernization rule. Not only that, but the illogic of the government's justification for the rule discounts it in the first place. The government argues, in typical Bush-speak, that more exemptions from pollution controls will lead to more equipment modernizations and efficiency, thereby somehow leading to . . . less pollution? Less stringent means more stringent?

The logic here is as solid as saying that new cars would be less expensive without catalytic converters that control emissions; consumers will buy more cars; and the air will improve. People do not fail to buy new cars because of the minor incremental cost of a catalytic converter; nor do industries refrain from modifying their facilities to increase production because of the incremental cost of pollution controls.

As for the Los Angeles fleet rule challenge, let's hope that the rule of law wins even in the same court that decided Bush vs. Gore. It would be a win for public health.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.